Bars open from 12 noon to 5am in Angeles.

[Guest]

Well here is the long awaited report on my trip to Angeles. I did think of posting it as a trip report but then it is not really a trip report, it is simply my thoughts on the place that is always called Angeles.

 

First of all it is not really called Angeles, it should be correctly called Fields Avenue, Balibago, Angleles. In other words the place that the guys all flock to is one 2 kilometer long street in Balibago which is a suburb of Angeles city.

 

On one side of this street is a motly collection of corrugated iron tin roofed shanty town type houses in which the Filipinos carry on a collection of businesses like car washing, laundry, videoke and clothes shops.

 

On the other side of the street is the Western side with another collection of businesses which include the reason why most guys go......the go go bars. As has been posted many times before there is not much else but if you are interested in drinking and are happy to do so in a go go bar then you can drink from 12 noon maybe even 11 am until 5am with no problem. There are a number of small sheebeen type places (to use an Irish word) down some of the side Sois off Fields Avenue where you can sit out on the street on a stool and drink with the locals at very cheap prices but these are tiny and do not have girls like the beer bars in Pattaya.

 

I do not intend to go through every bar as it has been done so many times before by guys with a lot more info than me but I want to give my overall impressions of the bar scene.

Some of the go gos here have had a large amount of money spent on them and are big spaces inside but in general the girls are not the centre of attention and for me that is all wrong. I do not go to a go-go to drink, I go to look at the girls, but far too many bars in Angeles have the girls tucked away on a small stage at the end of the bar or in a corner where you cannot get to them.

 

Take Blue Nile for example one of the biggest and best designed bars in the street, consistently voted the best bar..WHY WHY WHY, the music is so fucking loud it hurts your ears, the only music they play is hip hop. and the girls are packed up on a tiny stage in one corner of the room where you cannot get near them to start a party. Not only that but I didn't see one girl worth bar fining here. Had one quick cola and got out as fast as I could.

 

Champagne bar and Bunny ranch have the girls stuck on one tiny stage in a line in the far corner of the bar and guess what you can never get a seat in front of the girls 'cos there are only a few and that is where everyone wants to sit. I walked out of so many bars during my trip because the 7 or 8 seats in front of the stage were occupied by what looked like regulars and the only seats available were at the other end of the bar with nothing to look at...................there seems to be much more emphasis here on drinking than on the girls, some of the go gos even had fucking pool tables in them. That for me was a real negative and would make me thing twice about going back although for a visa run for a week it was great.

 

So I spent a lot of time in Neros Forum and Insomnia where you can sit at the stage and play with the dancers and get a party going. These are also bars where you can see all of the girls bodies from head to foot. So many bars have these ridiculously stupid stages where the girls seem to be dancing in an animal food trough so you cannot see their bodies from the knees down .........what the **** is that all about....how fucking stupid and it looks dreadful. Unless you walk over to the stage and look down you cannot see their feet. I think Voodoo is like this if I recall correctly.

 

I cannot think of any bar in Thailand like this and I cannot think of any bar in Thailand where the girls are not dancing in the centre of the bar and are the centre of attention. In most bars in Fields Avenue you can only sit in front and not all the way around hence the lack of seating.

 

Lancelot, Camelot, Blue NIle are way more comfortable and better designed than bars in LOS but the seats are too far away from the girls.....

 

Apart from the bars there are a couple of Italian and Chinese restaurants, Kokomos a sort of bar restaurant internet chill out zone and Margarita station a dark, dingy, smoky, seedy, pool hall with netting all over the windows that make it look like an aviary and that is it....oh and I think a Thai restaurant.

I couldn't even find a place to develop film and there is no shopping unless you take a taxi down the expressway for 30 mins to a huge mall owned by Robinsons and SM whoever they might be.

 

These are just my thoughts and views on the place we call Angeles it was my first trip and I did not go down Blow Row or out to Perimeter road they just looked far too primitive for me on the first trip. Blow Row looked like an even poorer version of KM11 in Cambodia, and I didn't like KMII.

 

So if the bars don't open until 6 and close at midnite in LOS here is another possibility.

 

For those of you who have never been maybe this will give you a better idea of waht to expect than some previous reports...........the girls all speak English and if you want a GFE in particular they are great for that at least mine was.

 

I will be back but when is in the lap of the Gods...

 

Uniformguy

[Sukhumvit]

Here at the moment and some people are out drinking and karaoking till 5am. Had to move rooms yesterday due to the karaoke going on just across the street.

 

It doesn't compare really to the likes of LOS. The PI is an acquired taste. Very run down and seedy at times. It's a lot cheaper than Thailand due to current exhange rates. Getting over 100 pesos to the pound sterling. So, if you're barfining at say 1000 pesos or going to blow row, Santos St, for a 500 bj then it's pretty cheap. Not Cambodia prices but still cheap.

 

I've been up Perimeter Road, yesterday afternoon. Some of the go go bars are open from 1 or 2pm up there. However, you didn't miss much. As it's so cheap it's more of a pissheads paradise than anything else. Local beer varies from 20 pesos to 80 or so, in the bars I've been in. So that's 20p or 35 cents and up for a brew. Met a pisshead up there yesterday. I had to switch to cokes. He was on the hard stuff. He dragged me from bar to bar introducing me to some of his barfly chums. We must have gone in at least a dozen bars in the space of 3-4 hours. He'd have a quick drink, annoy a couple of dancers, mamasan etc and go on to annoy someone else.

 

I've been here for about 3 months now. Not in Angeles I hasten to add. Fairly acclimitised to Pinoy ways. Used to bug me at first. The fact that you could get on a jeepney and someone would call out "para" and the driver would stop. That first person would get off. He'd put the vehicle into first gear and drive, oh 2 jeepney lengths, and someone else would call out "para" (stop) and he'd stop. On a busy commuter route with 10 or more people onboard this could happen quite a bit. Used to do my swede in. Used to it now. Or being catcalled all the time. Doesn't happen round here. Up in La Union every bastard day I'd have people calling out "Hey Joe, where you going?" or "Americano" etc. Every pigging day. Used to it now.

 

Some of the scummier bars up past The Flying Machine have a better atmosphere. Was in the little joint adjacent to Emotions. Think it's Touch of Class. The waitresses there were pretty friendly. Down this end, from Kokomo's towards Cambodia there are some pretty slick looking clubs but the dancers just dance. They're not interested in interaction with customers. Don't understand it. It's like they haven't been trained or taught that the "customer is king". Okay, you can have a run of bad luck in LOS but you'll pretty much luck out in the end and have at least one dancer come down after her shift and sit with you, even if she can't speak English. Here the dancers don't seem to know what to do.

 

Anyway, I've still got some time to go and will try to educate them.

[june11]

>> too many bars in Angeles have the girls tucked away on a small stage at the end of the bar or in a corner where you cannot get to them. <<

 

I never noticed this problem when I went to all the bars in angeles last year....actually come to think of it there were some gogo bars like that, which is different from bangkok. But your post reminds me of a "layout" problem that I find 1000 times more annoying, and that is the beer bars in pattaya (and sometimes bangkok), where the girls are crammed into a square BEHIND the bar (where you can usually only see their face), while the customers are on the other side of the bar. I never go to beer bars, partly for that reason. Although you may be physically closer (maybe 20 feet versus....) to a girl in that case versus the cases you describe in angeles, it's pretty ridiculous to me.

[Whitney]

I have found that Angeles is a good alternative for someone that wants to stay out late and check out something different for the nightlife.

 

With the current exchange rate, and the long opening hours of bars and go-gos, Angeles is worth the sidetrip out of Thailand. If further restrictions come with Thai nightlife, I'll make Thailand the sidetrip ::

 

I do agree about loud music being tooooo loud I'll get out of any bar quick if the music is a nuisance.

 

Angeles is looking better and better as Thailand starts to become more expensive, but delivering less and less. Flying out of Bangkok to Manila is relatively inexpensive, and the exchange rate is excellent. If you are coming to Southeast Asia for mainly the nightlife, Angeles is looking very good. It still has that wild west feel about it, and has enough bars and go-gos to make the time and expense worth it.

[Belem]

Good report. And you never touched on the cherry girl BS. I know there are some girls in Thailand who don't go with customers, but the rules are generally pretty clear. Because you have to prepay the barfine(1,000 pesos and the girl gets half), there is a runner problem(turning a long time agreement into a short time experience) in AC. When I was in Angeles last year, I noticed that when the Filipina girls get to be about 22 years old, the ass spread and droop take form, and they begin to look like blobs. They have great bodies when they're in their late teens, but as they get into their twenties, they fall to pieces rapidly. I haven't found a Filipina girl yet who could maintain her body shape into her twenties. One expat told me it's because of 400 years of in-breeding with the Spaniards. I found the women in Brazil and Thailand to be a lot better. Oh well. Too each his own.

[chilli13]

not to detour the thread to much further I would like to add that indonesians seems to produce a hell of a lot very nice body shapes for the female lot, but hey I guess no one goes there anymore as it's too dangerous right not to mention south of equator with the OZ & others

[Belem]

I heard Dennis Rodman's estranged father was last seen living above a cat house in Angeles City....LOL!!!!

[june11]

Girls in Angeles aren't anywhere near representative of Filipina girls in general.....I rarely see a good looking one in angeles, but outside of the bar areas in Manila i see a very high proportion, and especially those in their late 20's or older.

[Belem]

My statement is indicative of all Flip girls in general. I did hear that the girls that work in Manila(especially Makati) are better looking than the girls that work in Angeles and that the girls in Cebu are the best looking girls in the PI. The Orchid Inn is the only quality hotel within walking distance of the bars and is way overpriced, especially compared to Thailand. It's $45 a night, and the Flipper Lodge in Pattaya, in comparison, is a lot cheaper. Angeles looks like Tijuana forty years ago-a dusty shithole. One more observation: The brothels in Cambodia look more sanitary than Blow Job Alley in AC...LOL. Cheers.

[short-time]

Very much agree with everything you say about AC except for the flight from BKK to Manila being inexpensive. It's about $400 US on Thai air (probably more now with the crumbling dollar) and the tedious ride from the airport to AC is a little pricey at around 1600 pesos.

 

That said; AC is certainly looking like a bargain compared with the ever increasing prices in Thailand and its declining nightlife scene. Yeah, vacationing in AC with a sidetrip to LOS may become a reality for many a sanuker before long. The peso is now almost 56 to the dollar which looks damn good compared with a lousy 39 baht to the buck.

 

I've had little trouble finding AC go-go girls who are very attractive and with 1000 peso all-in barfines you can afford a large sampling - only problem is the high number of runners encountered...

 

ST